


Changeling

by consumptive_sphinx



Series: Mage AU [3]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Fae AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 18:53:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7585999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/consumptive_sphinx/pseuds/consumptive_sphinx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's something odd about John Laurens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Changeling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iniquiticity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iniquiticity/gifts).



> I saw you were having a bad day.

There's something odd about John Laurens.

It's obvious if you know what to look for. He's always been a bit too gleeful in battle to be fully human. His eyes hover in the space between human green and faerie golden. On summer nights his freckles glow, just barely.

Not fae, no hint of glamour. Changeling, maybe, or half-fae. It's hard to say. Changelings don't often survive to adulthood. Then again, half-fae aren't often born at all. Even with mixed couples children are fae or human, very rarely both. Lafayette's guess is changeling.

Nobody knows but John Laurens and him, as far as Lafayette can tell.  
  
The longer Lafayette watches the clearer it is.

John Laurens flinches at iron. Barely perceptible - there is certainly no pain, only an instinctive fear - but there. John Laurens's blood shines. Again, very faintly, but there.

Whichever fae formed this changeling into an imitation human did an excellent job. That he was not thrown into a fireplace as an infant speaks to that.

Lafayette notices even so. Unlike Henry Laurens, he knows what to look for. 

 

  
John Laurens gives absolutely no indication of who - of what - he is.

He uses no magic, for anything. Lafayette suspects he doesn't even perform the rituals on the equinoxes which would let him access it. This is not unheard of - plenty of fae disable their magic for a month in adolescence to teach perseverance - and it isn't out of character either - John Laurens's human family are plantation owners, and yet he advocates for abolition - but it is still odd.

Then again. Lafayette's favorite creature in the world is a tired human general. There are stranger things.

 

  
Lafayette mentions it offhandedly, almost without thinking. It's a careless remark: "You handle iron quite well, for a changeling."

There should be no reaction. There is nothing to react to.

John Laurens gapes at him. His eyes flicker, green-gold-green-gold-green, and although he doesn't say anything the confusion/desperation/terror is clear on his face.

"Are you alright?" Lafayette asks, when it's been almost a full minute and John Laurens still looks like a startled deer.

"I'm not a changeling," John Laurens says. Too quick. Does he think Lafayette will tell the others?

Lafayette steps forward, palms out. In Faerie it means _No weapons. No magic. I trust you._ He does not know what - if anything - it means here, but it cannot hurt. "It is alright," he says. Softer. "I will not tell."

John Laurens shakes his head. Sharp. He's still got the startled-deer look. "I'm not."

Could he -

Could he really not know?

Of course not. You would have to know. Lafayette flexes his toes inside his boots, feels the magic spark in his veins. You couldn't _not know._

But John Laurens doesn't seem to.

"Did you not realize?" Lafayette softens his voice even more.

John Laurens blinks, very slowly, like a cat when it trusts you. On John Laurens, it does not look like trust. His eyes shift from green to gold again. "Why didn't you tell me?"

He didn't know. He truly didn't. "I thought that you knew," Lafayette says. It doesn't seem like enough explanation. It is not enough explanation. 

Back to green. Gold. Green. Brilliant, flashing gold. "Why would you assume that?" John Laurens says through a clenched jaw.

 _How could you not know?_ Lafayette thinks again. It would not be wise to say aloud.

"You are right. I should not have," he says instead.

John calms, a little, eyes back to greenish hazel. "Yes," he says. A flash of an expression flickers across his face, too quick for Lafayette to decipher, but if he had to guess - uncertainty, maybe?

Lafayette smiles, in a way that he hopes is reassuring.

John Laurens stops. Waits.

Smiles back.


End file.
